American Documents

Civics Grades 11 – 12

Unit 2: Analyzing Early America

By:

Amy Warner

Objectives

Government•Students will be familiar with

the language of and political foundations found in important U.S. Documents.

Documents

• Declaration of Independence

• Articles of Confederation

Documents

• U.S. Constitution

• Bill of Rights

Objectives Continued

Social Studies Skills and Methods

• Students will be required to find an additional reliable internet source.

Materials Needed

• Computers for each group with internet access.

• Printer access.• Previous notes on English documents

and ideas (Unit 1: Foundations of American Government).

• Paper and pencil/pen.• Poster.• Art supplies: markers, colored

pencils, etc.

Websites

National Archiveswww.ourdocuments.gov

Magna Carta – British Library

www.bl.uk/treasures/magnacarta/magna.html

Websites Continued

Petition of Right – University of Chicago http://

pres.pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_assem bly3.html

Ideas of John Locke – Stanford University

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/

Activities

• 1. Students will be given the main points of the four major U.S. Documents previously listed.– Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness– Freedom of speech, religion, press, etc.– Strong central govt. vs. weak central govt.– Elected officials– Trial by jury– Etc.

• This will give students a basic framework of each of the documents.

Activities

• 2. The teacher will discuss what is considered a reliable internet source.– Is the source credible?– What are the author’s credentials?– Who is the source intended for?– Quality control?

• Is it peer reviewed?•EX: Online scholarly journals, organizational

websites, government websites, etc.•“Joe’s Government Page” is not a reliable

source.

Activities

• Model reliable sources with the four listed under Websites.

Activities

• 3. Students will be divided into groups and be assigned one of the four U.S. documents.

• 4. Individually, each student will find one reliable source about their document.

Activities

• 5. With notes from the previous unit and the notes about American documents, groups of students will research the English and American Documents using the websites noted above and the websites that they chose.

Activities

• 6. On a poster, each group will make some kind of diagram of English ideas and documents as they relate to the U.S. Documents.

Venn Diagram

Pyramid Chart

Organizational Chart

Activities

• 7. Groups then present their poster to the class.– Explain what you found in your

research.– Explain how the English documents

influenced the American documents using your chart.

Activities

• Posters will be displayed in the classroom.

Assessment• Individual Internet Source-----------------5 pts• Is it reliable------------------------------------10 pts• English documents/ideas-----------------10 pts • How do English docs/ideas relate to the

U.S. documents------------------------------10 pts• Presentation-----------------------------------10 pts• Clarity and creativity of poster-----------5 pts• TOTAL-------------------------------------------50 pts